The present invention relates to an arrangement for resilient absorption of forces including a friction spring arranged inside a spring housing, such as for example for casing buffers.
Arrangements of the above-mentioned general type are known in the art. A known arrangement has a housing and a friction spring with a plurality of inner conical rings and outer conical rings having conical surfaces cooperating with one another with interposition of a lubricant, for example, a grease. Such arrangements, for example, the arrangement disclosed in the German Pat. No. 1,286,818, has been widely utilized as machine elements and generally operate as springs for casing buffers and spring mechanisms of rail vehicles. These friction springs can withstand high static and dynamic loading and provide for high damping properties. The service life of the springs is determined not only by the geometry of the rings, but also by the condition of the conical contact faces as well as the lubricants suitable for the respective type and hardness of the material of the spring, and also by the spring housing which must protect the friction spring from dust and moisture. The lubricant acting between the conical contact surfaces of the rings is applied on the inner and outer sides of the friction spring as a thin layer. It has been shown that such friction springs satisfactorily perform their intended functions in normal operational conditions. However, when the springs are highly loaded and thereby have the respectively small cone angle or when the springs operate in extreme operational conditions, for example under the action of very strong impacts, the friction of rings leads to higher temperatures which reduce the adhesion of the lubricant on the friction spring. Thereby, there is a danger that after a certain time the axially cooperating inner and outer rings will be insufficiently lubricated.